Ceremony; one minute’s silence - Every 10 November at 9.05 am, the death of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Founder of the Turkish Republic and the first President of the Republic) is commemorated with one minute's silence. Bertil Mattsson, Regional director, Swedish Union of Tenants in Aros-Gävle

09.30 - 11.00 Seminars

Seminar A - Social Innovation and Labour Market (Bosnia-Herzegovina)

Social inclusion gained its importance in public discussions in politics of EU as early as 1985, but milestone was made in 2000 by adopting Lisbon Strategy in which was determined the strategic goal „to become the most competitive and most dynamic economy in the world based on knowledge, able to reach sustainable growth with more and better working places and greater social cohesion“. At the same time it was defined an instrument of implementation of Lisbon strategy so-called Open Method of Coordination, which has given a frame for cooperation among member countries. Since then OMC has been a compulsory document for member states, but it does not impose directives, decisions and regulations. This has been a role model for development national strategies of social inclusion for many countries outside of EU.

Social inclusion is a process which opens possibilities and economic means to pour and excluded groups to participate in social and cultural life. It is imbedded in fundament of all social politics within EU. Social inclusion is one of the six goals of Strategy of development of Bosnia and Herzegovina (currently in the process of adoption). Regarding to this, social inclusion in Bosnia and Herzegovina is an important issue to be resolved on its way to joining EU.

In Strategy of Social Inclusion in Bosnia and Herzegovina there have been defined strategic goals, priorities and measures for fighting the poverty by developing the following areas: Social protection in function of employment, Family and children protection, Education, Health care, Pension system, Rights of persons with disabilities, etc. There are many excluded groups in each society.

There are many different approaches in determining those groups but most commonly they are determined as following: Unemployed, People with disabilities, Ethnic/ language Minorities, Homeless, Drug Abuse, Housing, Children and Youth, The Aged, Women, Rural dwellers, Single parent families and families with a large number of children, People leaving institutions and Digital divide.

Social position and welfare of mentioned groups is among most significant indicators of level of prosperity and democracy in every country. There are some important questions that can be stilled in order to determining the level of social inclusions as following:

1. Do we have clearly defined excluded groups in our society? 2. Do we have a national strategy of inclusion of excluded groups? 3. Does our society have economic capacities and social means to eradicate social exclusion? 4. Are our inclusion action plans efficient enough? 5. Are we a society with equal chances for all?

If we can give an affirmative answers on these questions than we can say that we live in a rich and well developed society, but if not, then there is a work to be done in terms of combating social exclusion.

The notion of citizenship has played a key role in the development of democratic and socially responsible societies. Historically, the call for equality during the French revolution marked a turning point in the gradual transformation to a modern political system of rights and freedoms.

Equal citizenship has more recently been a major theme during the popular uprisings of the so called Arab Spring in the Middle East.

Beyond the legal framework of the concept, citizenship is shaped by historical, social, economic and political factors. The individual experience of citizenship depends to a large extent on the access to social and economic resources.

This seminar examines different ways of understanding the concept of citizenship. It discusses the relationship between state and citizen and how this balance influences social innovation. In addition, the seminar will explore the effects of the financial crisis on the state and the citizen.

Ms Pirovska will speak about the Ohrid Framework agreement that was signed after the conflict in 2001 in Macedonia. The Ohrid Framework Agreement among the other issues, covers the question of equal citizenship and in the same time was a ground for a social innovation in the Macedonian society.

Seminar C - Integration of Female Business Population in to the Economic Mainstream Including Social innovation (Serbia)

Gender equality increasingly has been recognized as an important component of the development and transition processes, in particular to better leveraging the untapped potential of women in emerging markets. The Third Millennium Development Goal specifically refers to the need to promote gender equality and empower women. Following a period of painful economic restructuring and recession in most transition countries, recent economic growth has contributed to improvements in overall welfare for men and women alike. However, in some specific aspects of transition, and in selected regions, women’s opportunities have been more constrained than men’s. The main contribution of gender equality to growth is through labour productivity and the efficient allocation of human capital. It is important, therefore, to promote economic opportunity and entrepreneurship among women. This is a broadly accepted approach not only in the rich countries but sometimes even more relevant for the countries with the low and middle income countries. In the era of financial crisis and turbulences which could cause unpredictable political and economic consequences, the sustainability of female businesses becomes even more challenging. What should be done in order to prevent the loss of female SMEs, how to encourage them, how to reduce the vulnerability of female companies...? Innovativeness and networking hold the keys for many similar questions. Improved competitiveness and innovativeness, in turn, lead to the inclusion of the female business community into the economic mainstream.

Issues to be discussed:

- Facing diferent practice and achivements NGOs dealing with women economic empowerment- Number of different experience from Serbia and Turky- Diversity in: projects approach, cultural background, funding- Emergence of new entrepreneurial initiatives through the NGOs projects as a forms of social innovation- Lessons to learn- Active participation in disscusion from other countries

Albania is preparing for accession to the European Union, while trying to maintain what little stability is gained in recent years. Current indicators show that many results have been achieved in Albania in recent years, in the context of democratization and economic stability. However, there are still many challenges. A real and strong democracy is nurtured by the power of communities to organize to pursue their interests and by people that take a stand and make a difference in their lives. Social justice doesn't come easily. You need to learn to create and nurture groups, to work the media and social media, the difficult art of political analysis and strategy, and the law.

International reports evaluating freedom and democracy recently shows that in Albania public participation in decision making is low (Freedom House, The Economist Index, Reporters without Borders, EU Commission, etc). Therefore public participation has moved to the forefront of the public agenda; but, in practice there is low involvement of citizens in decision-making. The lack of trust in institutions, the lack of ‘know how” and specific skills as well as a highly polarized political environment that is dominating in Albania have hampered the implementation of effective ways of public participation.

Even though the Law on the Organization and Functioning of the Local Authorities clearly spells out the duties of the local decision-makers to consult the community prior to and during the decision-making process, in the Albanian reality, such practices of involving the citizens in decision-making are not very common. The communities in general are very little informed of the tasks, responsibilities and functions of the local governing units.

The role of civil society is considered very important on mobilizing citizens through methods of participatory democracy for holding the elected representatives to account on citizens’ concerns.

Recently, Albanian NGOs have undertaken a lot of initiatives on increasing public participation through establishing mechanisms of dialogue between citizens groups and local authorities to advocate for and monitor commitments in the interest of wide public.

During 2012, more than 70 NGOs were organized in a joint umbrella of 4 NGOs networks, for driving the Electoral Reform 2011 in Albania on gender equality perspectives. Many NGOs have applied methodologies for involving citizens in decision making such as Community Based Score Cards, Social Audit, Gender planning and budgeting, etc, and have advocate to transform this methodologies into obligatory mechanisms to be applied by local authorities, which is considered as a social innovation in Albania. The above methodologies/mechanisms and relevant implementation strategies will be in focus of the seminar.

The issues to be discussed in the seminar are: How to achieve good governance through participatory democracy? How can representative democracy be transformed into participatory democracy? What are the tools and methodologies to involve public in decision making? What is the role of local authorities in involving public in decision making? What is the impact of EU integration process in participatory democracy?

The Third International Women Entrepreneurship and Leadership Summit will take place on November 8-9, 2012, in Istanbul, Turkey with the motto of “THE RISING POWER OF WOMEN IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER”.

In this seminar at Freja Forum we aim to underline the crucial contribution of women leadership to economic development and growth; thereby providing ground for national, European and international policy making, as well as leading the actors to cooperate and take action on these very vital issues. At the seminar we will have distinguished speakers to highlight the Summit outcomes from social innovation perspective and we will stress the role of women play at Turkey’s EU accession process! We will place women in the middle of the debate and focus on the new world order!

Our objective is to provide a rare and exciting opportunity to brainstorm together with Western Balkan countries to network and share valuable information on our vision of the new world order. We aim to stretch beyond the limits of women leadership and establish a platform of global engagement among leaders and entrepreneurs from diverse regions and backgrounds.

Main Questions:

- What is the role of women in the new world order? What is the role of women at Turkey’s EU accession process?- What are the ongoing trends in economic growth? How does the EU 2020 Strategy evolve and boost women’s employment?- How do we see the relationship between women leadership in social innovation?

Workshop E - Bio Organic Food Production and Consumption as a Social Innovation (Serbia)

Nataša Milanović, Serbian ambassador of women entrepreneurship.

15.45 - 16.00 Coffee Break

16.00 -16.45 Freja Forum Poll and presentation of Freja reports

Freja report 1: Methods concerning development in NGOs mentoring.Freja report 2: Priorities of main donors of the next countries for future.

17.00 – 17.30 Closing event

Red ribbon ceremony with partners and launch of Freja Academy.

17.45 Transfer to hotel from University

19:15 Transfer from Hotel to Boat – Kabataş

20:00 Dinner on Boat – Bosporus

The name of the boat is Mor Fil. Bus services from Hotel at 19.15 to the sea port. The boat will take off at 20.00 pm and come back to the shore at latest at 00.00 and there will be buses provided to the Hotel.